NFL breathes easier: Lucky Patriots outlast thuggy Ravens

Two schools of thought emerged from Monday’s highly-entertaining Monday night game between the Patriots and Ravens.

Not a lot of middle ground here. The Patriots do that to football fan. I hate ‘em.

The Patriots were lucky. Their quest, bolstered by cheating, should be over.

I also can’t stomach the Ravens. They are out of control, violent and nasty, incapable of composure and should be heavily fined or kicked out of the league for their actions.

What a great game, though.

That’s right, we were lucky. You got a problem with that?

As the game began to heat up, I was hoping the Ravens would win. But after I saw Rodney Harrison mouthing off to the absurdly arrogant Brian Billick, who blew kisses toward Harrison, I had a few pangs of tolerance for Belichick’s bandits.

In the final minute, as The Ravens melted down, I was pleased that the Patriots’ quest was still intact and not at all surprised by Baltimore’s petulant, disgusting, bratty behavior, which was punctuated by incessant post-game whining.

The Pats are 12-0 and seem to have a great chance to go unbeaten in the regular season. Who isn’t excited about that? The Patriots pretend to be almost bored by it all.

Forget the one-game-at-a-time nonsense. Every player on that team has thought about it and determined: “It’d be pretty damn cool to go 16-0.”

I’ll be OK as long as the bitter, self-important 1972 Dolphins stay off the interview circuit. Earth to Mercury Morris: Dude, chill out. This is not a cure for cancer we’re talking about.

Don “Asterisk” Shula can backtrack all he wants, but he is the leader of The School of Fuming Fish and every time he’s interviewed, he seems less credible.

We carry on, Dolphin-free.

Are the Pats lucky? Or are the Ravens hoodlums?

Don’t ask anyone at NFL headquarters. They’re too busy congratulating themselves on a job well done. Read from that what you will.

The Lucky Patriots

New England should have lost. Hell, the Pats did lose.

They were outhit and outplayed much of the game. Tom Brady has to be considered one of the best QBs of all time, but on Monday, he looked nothing like Joe Montana or John Elway.

The game was over — twice. On the first key fourth-down play, a Baltimore assistant called time out (which is against league rules)an instant before the Ravens stuffed a 4th-and-1 play.

The classy Ravens, to a man, made angry gestures toward their own coaches on the sidelines.

Then the Pats made a huge mistake which, remarkably, saved the game.

But was it a mistake? A motion penalty, barely visible to the naked eye, erased another Raven smothering on 4th-and-1.

The final stroke of luck was a defensive holding penalty on another fourth-down pass play, negating one more potential Baltimore death blow.

It was an awful call, one of the worst ever to decide a game. NFL refs, incompetent boobs in some cases, never make that call to decide a game.

The Pats still needed to score and they did, even though replays showed that Pats WR Jabbar Gaffney was juggling the ball as he went out of bounds.

True to form, the gutless replay judge did not overturn the call on the field, lest anyone think the worst officials in any sport in any country be put in a negative light.

This lucky escape by the Patriots might have trumped the Tuck Rule game.

No, it wasn’t the playoffs, but it may end up having more historical significance.

* The Johan Santana dispersal draft — Yankees, Red Sox or Angels — is a perfect example of why I may push baseball away from the sports dinner plate next spring. There are four or five teams that can stuff their rosters with all-stars. Everyone else be damned.

* Jimmy V Week? Are we sure it isn’t Jimmy V Month?

* How clever of ESPN to start listing their ESPN Deportes reporters among those with alleged “scoops.” On Tuesday, a Deportes’ staffer “reported” that Jose Guillen signed with the Royals for the ludicrous sum of $36 million over three years.

Their man read it off the AP wire, he “reported” it and ESPN gave him credit on the crawl.

Bob from Grand Rapids could “report” the same thing, but I bet he wouldn’t end up at the bottom of the TV screen.